Volume 19, Number 4 · September 21, 1972
Getting to Know the Slaves
By Eugene D. Genovese
The Children of Pride: A True Story of Georgia and the Civil War
edited by Robert Manson Myers
Yale, 1,845 pp., $19.95
The Diary of Edmund Ruffin, Vol. 1. Toward Independence, October, 1856-April, 1861
edited by William K. Scarborough
Louisiana State University Press, 712 pp., $20.00
The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography, Volume 1: From Sundown to Sunup: The Making of the Black Community
by George P. Rawick
Greenwood Publishing Company, 208 pp., $10.00
The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography, Volume 2: South Carolina Narratives
edited by George P. Rawick
Greenwood Publishing Company, 694 pp., $25.00
The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography, Volume 3: South Carolina Narratives
edited by George P. Rawick
Greenwood Publishing Company, 561 pp., $25.00
The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography, Volume 4: Texas Narratives
edited by George P. Rawick
Greenwood Publishing Company, 603 pp., $25.00
The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography, Volume 5: Texas Narratives
edited by George P. Rawick
Greenwood Publishing Company, 516 pp., $25.00
The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography, Volume 6: Alabama and Indiana Narratives
edited by George P. Rawick
Greenwood Publishing Company, 653 pp., $25.00
The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography, Volume 7: Oklahoma and Mississippi Narratives
edited by George P. Rawick
Greenwood Publishing Company, 536 pp., $25.00
The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography, Volume 8: Arkansas Narratives
edited by George P. Rawick
Greenwood Publishing Company, 705 pp., $25.00
The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography, Volume 9: Arkansas Narratives
edited by George P. Rawick
Greenwood Publishing Company, 703 pp., $25.00
The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography, Volume 10: Arkansas Narratives
edited by George P. Rawick
Greenwood Publishing Company, 739 pp., $25.00
The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography, Volume 11: Arkansas and Missouri Narratives
edited by George P. Rawick
Greenwood Publishing Company, 709 pp., $25.00
The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography, Volume 12: Georgia Narratives
edited by George P. Rawick
Greenwood Publishing Company, 709 pp., $25.00
The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography, Volume 13: Georgia Narratives
edited by George P. Rawick
Greenwood Publishing Company, 710 pp., $25.00
The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography, Volume 14: North Carolina Narratives
edited by George P. Rawick
Greenwood Publishing Company, 460 pp., $25.00
The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography, Volume 15: North Carolina Narratives
edited by George P. Rawick
Greenwood Publishing Company, 436 pp., $25.00
The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography, Volume 16: Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Ohio, Virginia, and Tennessee Narratives
edited by George P. Rawick
Greenwood Publishing Company, 471 pp., $25.00
The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography, Volume 17: Florida Narratives
edited by George P. Rawick
Greenwood Publishing Company, 379 pp., $25.00
The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography, Volume 18: Unwritten History of Slavery
edited by George P. Rawick
Greenwood Publishing Company, 322 pp., $25.00
The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography, Volume 19: God Struck Me Dead
edited by George P. Rawick
Greenwood Publishing Company, 218 pp., $25.00
'De white folks was hard on us. Dey would whup us 'bout de leas' li'l thang.' Mingo White, ex-slave from Alabama, could not remember his age, but, although he had been only a boy in slavery times, he could remember some other things. His parents had been separated by sale and his childhood had been filled with fear and hard work. He was among a minority of the slaves of the South in having had to work hard as a boy, for whatever the sins of the slaveholders, they did not normally send young blacks to the cotton fields before the age of twelve and then they kept them as half-hands for several years. Mingo White, however, had to keep up with the adults or suffer the driver's lash. When slaves on his plantation did not get whipped for slow or poor work, they got whipped for holding prayer meetings without permission or for a variety of other, often more trivial, matters.
Review, 2922 words
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